


all that you've given me

by Rupzydaisy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Minor Sparring, Pre-Canon, The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight, andromaquynh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 06:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30101811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: "Will that help?" asks Andromache.Quỳnh grits her teeth. "No."The corners of Andromache’s lips are pulled downwards. "What will?"It always takes Quỳnh by surprise, to understand how well Andromache can read her. They had not travelled together for long, not in comparison to the vastness of her life. But their companionship had been more binding than any of Quỳnh’s familial ties. More than enough to step beyond a common language, to share the best and worst parts of herself with Andromache, and in turn find a love and devotion so deep to wade into while knowing she wouldn’t lose herself.It’s how she knows Andromache won't say no.And Quỳnh knows she shouldn’t say it, that this kind of peace couldn’t be gained from swinging her fists around. But she says it anyway."Fight me."
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21
Collections: The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight





	all that you've given me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ahana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahana/gifts).



> Friday's Prompt for the TOG Femslash Fortnight: ~~Poem/Song~~ Frieda Kahlo letter snippet: 'I ask you for violence, in the nonsense, and you, you give me grace, your light and your warmth.' ->  
> Technically this was dropped as a prompt in the discord a while ago and it was still haunting me. I got halfway through, realised I dug myself into an angst hole, and really really hope I’ve managed to get out.

Quỳnh's hands clench and stretch repeatedly. She hisses under her breath from not being able to stop the tremors running along her arms. Like a drum skin, she’s stretched taut and reverberating long after being struck.

Although her bow is unstrung and packed away, same as her arrows, she cannot shake off the heat in her blood or the expectation that another fight is around the corner. Her eyes scan the skies and mistake bird wings for arrows in flight. The wind rustling across the grass is misjudged for enemies crawling towards them in a stealth attack. 

She swallows down her souring anger, blames it on her body still healing and the strange feeling that accompanies the surface-level easing which hasn’t sunk away yet. There are a hundred phantom injuries from where blades and arrows had pierced her skin over the last few days and no amount of freezing cold river water could wash the lingering itch trapped in between her bones and muscles. 

Shifting in her saddle, she has to remind herself again that they had left the battlefield and the dead of both sides far behind. 

This time they hadn't fought for glory or for coin. They had been called on as a favour to a friend of Andromache’s; an old warrior who had known it was a losing battle from the moment he had welcomed them into his home. He didn’t waste time with trite hospitalities. All he’d given was a single plea in the hope to buy some time for others to escape. 

Quỳnh had nodded as soon as Andromache turned her head, and their shared answer was clear in her eyes. 

The march to the battle had been short, the crop fields watered with blood rather than water, and already they had known they were too late to help change the result even with their talents. Despite their presence and their battle skill, all they would be able to do was delay the inevitable. They joined in and watched the numbers on their side whittle down, had held off the end as long as necessary. 

Then, they too were forced to admit defeat and escaped into the night. The dark provided them enough cover to slip away, and Andromache had led them south-west on foot towards a river where they washed off the mud and blood just in time to watch the sun rise. 

With her hair brushed out and spread over her shoulders to dry, Quỳnh stares at Andromache’s back. She wishes to find answers to the heaviness threatening to drag her heart back to the churned-up fields in the fading green dye of Andromache’s tunic.

When it doesn’t come, Quỳnh throws the reins over and slides off her saddle without allowing her horse to break its stride. 

Andromache turns on hearing the thud of her feet on the ground. Her composure is as sturdy and sure-footed as the mare underneath her. She rides as she fights, with a natural grace smoothed down from all the banal indignities of life. 

"Did you want to stop?" 

Quỳnh sighs back, closes her eyes and lets her feet carry forwards thinking;  _ she knows, of course she knows.  _

When she opens them, Andromache is still looking at her. 

Throughout the night, Quỳnh had wrestled to keep down her screams. They were lodged in her throat, wrapped around her ribs, and she fought hard to keep them far from her lips. It wasn’t fair to let them escape out into darkness. There was no use for them when each step took them further away from the cause. 

It was only Andromache’s occasional soft commands to her horse that broke the silence between them in the long hours of their trek. Following in her footsteps, Quỳnh had felt a tickle of jealousy stir in her heart. It had been immediately quashed in a deluge of shame and she was deeply thankful that Andromache couldn’t see it on her face. 

Although the night had given way to day, Quỳnh still found herself wanting. Andromache possessed a calmness she didn’t. She had learnt how to walk into a lost battle and let the blood-lust and heat ebb away from her once it was over. 

Shaking her head again, Quỳnh tugs on her horse's reins. "We should keep moving."

"Will that help?" asks Andromache.

Quỳnh grits her teeth. "No." 

The corners of Andromache’s lips are pulled downwards. "What will?" 

It always takes Quỳnh by surprise, to understand how well Andromache can read her. They had not travelled together for long, not in comparison to the vastness of her life. But their companionship had been more binding than any of Quỳnh’s familial ties. More than enough to step beyond a common language, to share the best and worst parts of herself with Andromache, and in turn find a love and devotion so deep to wade into while knowing she wouldn’t lose herself. 

It’s how she knows Andromache won't say no. 

And Quỳnh knows she shouldn’t say it, that this kind of peace couldn’t be gained from swinging her fists around. But she says it anyway. 

"Fight me."

Andromache’s eyes meet her burning gaze. "If that's what you want."

With a click of her tongue, Andromache draws her mare to a halt and slides off her saddle. An incline of her head has Quỳnh’s horse following and both beasts are tied up to graze. Her green outer tunic is shrugged off and she turns in a circle, knocking away larger stones with her feet until there’s a decent sized area for them to spar. 

Grass cleared, Andromache’s arms hang loosely by her sides and she waits with a patience bestowed by her years. 

Quỳnh feels the tremors return and buzz up and down her veins. Her breath quickens as she prepares for the fight. Despite the potency of her anger that had bubbled up under her quashed screams, there are great gulfs of sorrow between her heartbeats she still cannot cross. 

She tries again now, to release it but her anger sinks like a stone. Images of the previous day’s fighting return unbidden behind her eyes. Her first death had been in a similar battle. She fought in so many before meeting Andromache. And now they fought side by side for others, for worthy causes. Lost causes. 

Quỳnh rolls onto the balls of her feet and tries to catch her breath. 

The hot anger gives way to the cold burn of fear. It engulfs her. The burden of knowledge weighs down on her, of how the cycle of war would  _ always  _ continue. She sinks into the helplessness of having to watch it all happen again. 

Her fingers curl into fists. 

When Andromache lunges, Quỳnh releases the breath she was holding onto.

They fight until she begins to feel that anger drain out of her. As it goes, her moves turn sluggish. Where she was quick at dodging, Andromache’s hits land consecutively. Winded and bruised, she takes the punches as they come, and instead of stepping back, she pulls Andromache closer. 

Unbalancing them both, Quỳnh hits the ground first. Her cry of pain continues as she yells herself hoarse. She thrashes her arms and elbows, striking at the ground more and more. It’s no longer a grapple when her hands fist into Andromache’s damp tunic. Her legs kick out uselessly with the last reserves of her energy. 

Sensing the change, Andromache pulls her in tight, twisting around Quỳnh until she’s caught up in her embrace. Their legs tangle together and the weight pinning her down is welcome. Slowly but surely the burn in Quỳnh’s limbs slips away and her body goes lax. Lying in her arms, Quỳnh heaves out big breaths, feeling Andromache do the same around her. 

There’s a wash of relief sloshing through her but the thumping of her heart makes Quỳnh feel alive and whole, and she finally feels able to push away at the fear that had gripped her heart so tightly. 

Wiping the sweat away from her face, she tips her neck back to look at Andromache better. All she sees is tenderness in her iridescent blue eyes and in the small quirk of her lips. There’s not a single trace of pity, only care and love. It takes Quỳnh’s breath away as she shifts to sit up. 

But Andromache has other ideas and Quỳnh watches in silence as she raises her hand. 

Without a sound, Andromache traces the line that a sword had taken during battle, cutting straight across the bottom of Quỳnh’s neck and digging into her collarbone. It had been the first wound to slow her down. She had caught glimpses of herself in her opponents’ eyes; she looked a horror striding across the field and watering the dead with her own lifeblood. 

Earlier, Andromache had helped to wash the dried blood off in the river, and now Quỳnh melts as she brushes away the memory of the wound. Back and forth, the same fingers that had gripped her axe now caress her skin, until that’s all Quỳnh can feel. 

"Here too," whispers Quỳnh. 

Sliding her sleeve up, she points at the middle of her upper arm and remembers how tight her fingers had to grip the arrow shaft to yank it back out. As Andromache's lips brush against her skin, the memory behind her eyelids evaporates under the gentle heat. 

"Where else?" Andromache's eyes search hers. 

Blinking away her tears, Quỳnh searches back, hoping to fall into a shade of blue she had never known could bring so much comfort. 

"Everywhere. Nowhere." Already she can't recall how many times she had been struck or stabbed over the past few days. There was no place on her body that retained the scars she had earned or deserved. 

"I'm here." Andromache whispers over and over in her ear, and more kisses follow. She spreads them graciously over Quỳnh’s cheeks and the invisible tracks where the tears had fallen as they walked away from the battlefield in the dead of night. 

Slowly, Quỳnh relinquishes the fear that had frozen her in the dead of night. It seeps out of her heart until her fingers can slide over Andromache's damp tunic and she can embrace her too. The ache in her throat from screaming has vanished along with the need to put a voice to a now-shrunken sorrow. The twist of shame in her pit of her stomach had dropped out somewhere in the fight and only a sliver of hope remained. 

She brackets her arms under Andromache’s shoulder blades before entrusting her with it. "How many times have you done this?" 

Her question comes from wanting to know how long it would take until she could walk away from such horrors without falling apart. From knowing she had to ask Andromache, rather than hope to glean it from somewhere in the darkness. 

Because the fight comes easy. It’s so easy to string her bow up and raise her sword. Her heart moves equally quick at the pleas of the people they come across, but it’s much harder to watch them fall beside her and know that her presence as an eternal warrior will be to observe that happen with a greater degree of uselessness next time.

"I can't remember." Andromache’s chin tilts upwards and her gaze meets the sky, her fingers continue to trace patterns on Quỳnh’s arm. "Enough to know it'll come around again. To know that I'll find myself there when it does." 

The lack of knowledge burns through Quỳnh until it reaches her tongue. "How? Tell me, please."

“I’ve fought for longer than I can remember.” Andromache sighs heavily, wriggles in comfort when Quỳnh spreads her palms against her back and brushes at her shoulder blades. “Once it had been for myself, but now, always for others. For the people I care about, and for the ones who’ve brought their cause and asked me to fight for them.” 

“But we’ve been wrong to fight before. I can’t help but think, even yesterday, it was clear from the start it would end in blood and defeat.”

“You’re asking if we should let them be, let them lose quicker?” 

There’s no judgment in Andromache’s tone, but the idea of it falls away from Quỳnh as soon as she hears it. “No. I don’t think I could stand by and see that happen. But you’d always choose it? No matter how hard it is to be there as they die and only be able to watch?” 

“Yes, I would. I’ve been tired of war before. I’ve been so sick of it. But whenever I’ve tried walking away, I’ve always come back because I feel it’s right, and because not trying to help feels wrong.” 

Loosening her embrace slightly, Quỳnh rolls sideways to lay alongside her. She reaches up to trace Andromache’s cheek, feels the twitch of her smile under her fingers. As she draws a path downwards to her neck and the sensitive skin that makes her twitch, Andromache’s hand clasps hers and holds it in place above her heart. 

“You feel it too,” says Andromache. 

The surety in her voice draws her in and flows over her like sticky honey. It’s beyond temptation to think that she could find the same strength within herself. Quỳnh can hardly dare to believe the confidence she inspires. 

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is, in a way. And there’s another thing that helps.” The piercing look in Andromache’s eyes burns through the last fragments of Quỳnh’s fear. “You. You're here, and you choose this too. Even before we met. That's how. I had the strength to walk away last night, because I knew you were right behind me.” 

Like her namesake blossoming in the moonlight, a smile breaks over Quỳnh’s lips. She bridges the small gap between them to rest her face in the crook of Andromache’s neck. It’s an easier place to confess from. 

“I didn’t turn back because I was following you. I didn’t stop because your footprints were there in front of me, showing me the way.”

“Last night, in the dark?” Andromache lets out a small huff of laughter that makes Quỳnh’s nose bump against the hollow of her throat. “How could you see anything?”

More than anything, Quỳnh craves another laugh from her love’s mouth. It fills her heart with pure delight. She wants to bring Andromache the same joy she elicits. Quỳnh presses all the more closer, and ponders for a moment on what to say. 

“Alright, it’s true,” she confesses, “It was too dark to see your tracks. But I am still right, my beloved. I didn’t stop because I could hear your heart calling mine. Because I’d follow you anywhere, and for as long as my heart beats, it’s yours.” 

The last slips out, a more deeper confession than she had expected but as she had hoped, and the laugh Quỳnh gains because of it is golden. When she lifts her head again, Andromache’s smile puts every rising sun to shame. 

“As mine is yours,” reminds Andromache. 

Their joy settles between them, growing more potent by the minute. As it does, Andromache laces their fingers together and presses Quỳnh’s fingers to her lips one by one. “How about, when we get up, I follow you for a bit?”


End file.
